


They’ll Take Your Soul If You Let Them (But Don’t You Let Them)

by cattyk8



Category: Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Date Rape Drug/Roofies, Duncan Kane is not a bad guy, Fix-It, Gen, Logan too, Underage Drinking, because bad parents, he's just messed up, let's be honest that's basically all of the 09ers, preseries au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-24 04:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19716409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cattyk8/pseuds/cattyk8
Summary: In which Duncan and Logan remember how to be Veronica’s friends at Shelly Pomroy’s party.





	They’ll Take Your Soul If You Let Them (But Don’t You Let Them)

**Author's Note:**

> Unabashed fix-it fic here, just a small idea I was toying with a few years ago that I started, didn’t finish, and then decided to rejigger as a 2000-word ficlet for [VMHQ’s 2000 Followers - Last Chance Fic Fix Challenge](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/VMHQ_2K_Followers_Last_Change_Fic_Fix_Challenge). Do check out the fics there—I'm sure there are many better 2000 times better than this one.
> 
> Congratulations to the awesome folks at VMHQ on 2000 followers! Thank you for everything you do to keep the fandom flames fanned.

“Dudes, you gotta get your asses poolside!”

Logan Echolls didn’t know if he should be grateful or annoyed when Dick Casablancas came to dispel the awkwardness that had fallen over the living area of Shelly Pomroy’s house.

Not that anyone else seemed to be feeling the awkwardness. His best friend, Duncan Kane, had abandoned the zombie impression he’d been maintaining for the past two months in favor of a sort of pensive fury. The guy had been acting strange all week, rushing off to the bathroom to puke at random moments, laughing giddily then suddenly sniping verbally at whoever happened to be closest.

Tonight, Duncan had shown up and started drinking with a kind of steady determination that worried Logan, which was why, for quite possibly the first time ever, he’d decided to stay sober at an 09er party. A total downer, considering how lame this party was without the forgiving haze of quality hooch, but, whatever. Buds before suds, and all that.

“Dudes! Did you hear me? Come on!”

“Thanks, but no thanks. I have no desire to see Tad Wilson and company getting trashed and jumping fully clothed into the pool.”

“No, dude, Ronnie’s totally wasted, so we’re gonna turn her into a salt lick.”

“What’s she even doing here, anyw—”

“What did you say?” Duncan all but hissed. His head had snapped up at the mention of Veronica’s name.

 _Surprise, surprise,_ Logan thought, adding this to his list of Strange Things Duncan Has Done This Week. Duncan had been applying the see-no-evil tactic on his former girlfriend since before Lilly hadؙ—since before everything had gone to shit. Now Duncan was seething, looking madder than Logan had ever seen him, except for that one time in the Kane study the week the other boy had broken things off with Veronica Mars. Or started ignoring her, anyway, since from what Logan knew, they’d never actually broken things off. They’d just suddenly gone from being together to...well... _not_.

Logan opened his mouth to ask why his best friend even cared about what they were doing to the sheriff’s daughter— _former_ sheriff’s daughter, he reminded himself with vindictive satisfaction—who had betrayed them by standing with her father instead of siding with the Kanes, with _Logan_. But Duncan was already gone, barreling his way through drunken teenagers. Logan sighed and followed, as did Dick.

“What’s going on, man?”

“Beats me,” Logan replied. “DK’s been acting weird all week.” He heard Duncan yelling and picked up the pace.

“What the hell are you doing? She can barely sit up, you freak!” His best friend was screaming, scattering the teens crowded around a petite blonde who was half-unconscious on one of the poolside loungers.

“I wanna go home,” she bleated weakly.

“You are home,” Sean Friedrich, who could always be relied upon to be an ass, assured her. “See? There’s your pool and your hot tub and your big mansion.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you people?”

“Hold up, DK,” Logan said, laying a hand on the other boy’s shoulder. “You can’t be the cavalry and the martyr, man. Pick a side.”

“Leave her alone.”

Rolling his eyes, Logan took a full cup of rum and Coke from a nearby teen, dug up his last vial of the GHB he and some of the guys had picked up at Tijuana the previous week, and dumped it into the cup. If his best friend had forgotten how to have a little fun, Logan was happy to be the one to remind him.

“Hey, I’m sorry, dude. You know, man, you’re totally right. It’s no way to have fun, huh?” He handed the drink to his friend. “Cheers.”

Duncan accepted the cup, looked from it to Logan, then passed it back, sighing. “Thanks, man, but I think I’m gonna take her home.”

As the other boy turned back to Veronica, Logan grabbed him by the shoulder. “What the fuck, man? Why do you care so much about that traitorous skank? Have you forgotten she betrayed us? Betrayed Lilly!” He all but screamed that last word.

Neither boy noticed the teens around them had gone silent. Logan saw Duncan’s eyes narrow, his expression chilling in a way that had the other boy noticing for the first time how much his best friend resembled his snooty bitch of a mother, queen-of-frigid Celeste Kane.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Duncan said, each word delivered like a bullet from a rifle. “Veronica didn’t betray anybody. I’m pretty sure _we_ betrayed _her_.”

Uncaring that Logan’s jaw had dropped in shock at the pronouncement, the Kane heir pulled Veronica to her feet, steadying her when she staggered. “Come on, Veronica, I’ll take you home. How much have you had to drink tonight, anyway?”

“One. And it was only a Coke.” Veronica’s mumbled reply had Logan’s mouth snapping shut violently, teeth clicking as his jaw clenched.

 _Fuck_ , the boy thought, realizing she must’ve gotten some of the Liquid X too. _Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!_ Whatever he might think about the blonde who’d once been one of his best friends, he was certainly not in favor of ruffying the girl and—he launched into a string of curses as his mind came up with all the different scenarios that train of thought could end with.

“Dude, what the hell?”

“Shut up, Dick,” Logan said, dumping the drink he had onto the ground, then tossing the cup. “I’m going after them.”

“Are you punking me? What the fuck, man?”

Abruptly, Logan turned back to the blond surfer, who, like the rest of the teens around them, looked completely bewildered. Grabbing a handful of Dick’s shirt, Logan stepped forward menacingly. “What did you do with the GHB I gave you, Dick?” he asked in a low voice so only the other boy would hear.

“The what?”

“Did you dose Ronnie with the Liquid X?”

“Did I—what the fuck? You think I drugged her?” Blond curls flew as the other boy shook his head vehemently. “No, man, I wouldn’t do that. I gave one dose to Madison, was gonna take the other tonight. I still got it. See?” He pulled the vial out of his pocket.

“Shit. Find out who dosed her—discreetly.”

“Yeah, man. I’ll text you the name.”

Logan stepped back, turned. Duncan and Veronica had already disappeared into the house, and he jogged to catch up.

He found them outside, Veronica all but propped up against the side of Duncan’s SUV. The girl was pressed up against her ex-boyfriend, attempting to press kisses to his jaw, shoulder, whatever, with all the eagerness of a puppy. Said ex-boyfriend was standing rigidly still, looking nauseated.

“No, Veronica, it’s wrong,” Duncan was saying weakly.

“Hey, man,” Logan said. “I’ll help you get her home. You’ve had a few tonight. We can take my car, then I’ll drive you back for yours in the morning.”

“Thanks, man,” Duncan said, gratitude naked on his face. “Ah, you think you can help me with her?”

Logan grimaced, but moved forward to pull Veronica from where she was doing her best to impersonate a climbing vine. “Let’s get you home, Ronnie.”

“Logan? Is it really you?”

“Yeah, Ronnie, it’s me,” he said, steering the girl toward his yellow X-Terra.

“And Duncan too…”

“Yeah,” he said when the other boy remained silent. He opened the door of his truck, helped her crawl into the back seat. She promptly sprawled across it, and he had to reach over to adjust her skirt when it rode up.

Seeing Duncan had already climbed into the passenger seat, he went around the car and got into the driver’s seat. His best friend was staring at the girl in the back seat with an expression of longing and regret that made his stomach churn.

“I miss you guys,” Veronica mumbled.

Logan turned to gape at her, rage solidifying in his chest and all but burning its way up his throat. “Then why the fuck did you turn on us?” he spat.

But she’d already passed out.

He turned back and gripped the steering wheel, squeezing so hard he could see his knuckles whitening even in the dim light. He focused on his breathing, staring at the dials and indicators on his dashboard for several moments before turning the key in the ignition.

“She didn’t, you know.” At Duncan’s soft pronouncement, Logan’s head whipped around so he could stare at his friend. “Turn on us, I mean. I think, if anything, we turned on her.”

“What the fuck are you saying, man?” Logan spat out, each word tasting bitter on his tongue. “That’s the second time tonight you’ve defended the bitch.”

“It’s two months too late.” Duncan was staring straight ahead, his expression regretful. “But I need her help.”

“What? _Why_?”

“I need to talk to her father.”

Logan had had enough of his friend’s cryptic bullshit. With a vicious twist, he killed the engine. “Explain. Now.”

“Keith Mars was wrong when he thought my dad was guilty of k-killing Lilly,” Duncan said slowly, stuttering a bit at the end.

“Well, no shit, Sherlo—”

“But he wasn’t wrong in thinking my parents were hiding something about Lilly’s death. I _know_ they messed with the crime scene.”

Everything froze in that moment. A minute, an hour, an eternity later, he croaked, “What did you say?”

“I said my parents messed with the crime scene. I’m pretty sure they either framed Abel Koontz, or paid him off to take the fall.” Duncan drew in a deep breath, let it out. “And I think it’s because they think I killed her.”

“What. The. Fuck.”

One side of Duncan’s mouth quirked up, in a grimace or a smile, Logan didn’t know. “That pretty much sums up all I’ve been thinking for the past few days.”

“Why would they even—”

“I have a condition.” Duncan turned his body away, so he was staring out of the window. “A type of epilepsy. Sometimes I have these fits. Rages, seizures. And, uh, I don’t remember everything after.”

“What? Since when?”

“Since always. I was born with it. It mostly gets triggered by, uh, stress and exhaustion. I—” Duncan gulped. “I found her. Lilly. She was already dead, but I tried to do something? I remember I got blood on my hands and my shirt seeing if I could help her. And then I saw her eyes and I… I blacked out. The next thing I remember, I’m out of my soccer uniform and in a sweater and pants I don’t remember putting on. Keith tried to interview me to ask what I knew, but my parents blocked him and sicced their lawyer on him.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Seizures?”

“Yeah. Rages, sometimes.”

Logan thought to the time he’d seen his best friend doing his level best to strangle Jake Kane in his own home. “I...uh...I think I saw one.”

“What? When?” Duncan had spun around to glare at him.

“It was, uh, a couple weeks before Lilly. Um, you kind of, ah, attacked your dad.”

Duncan slumped in his seat. “Yeah, I figured something happened then. But I was really pissed at him at the time. My mom put me on antidepressants that week, plus a whole new regimen of meds for the epilepsy. I’ve been pretty much a zombie. Still, I don’t see how I could’ve gotten worked up enough to attack Lilly, and I wouldn’t have had a reason to. She knew—well, she knew what I was dealing with.”

“Shit, man. And you’ve been drugged to your eyeballs ever since?”

“I stopped taking the antidepressants a week ago today. Not fun.”

“Is that why you’ve been—” Logan gestured vaguely.

“Out of it? Puking my guts out? Yeah, pretty much.”

“But that was before… Before Lilly.”

“Yeah. I mean, Mom got our doctor to up the dosage after Lilly, so I don’t remember a lot about the last couple of months, actually. But the antidepressants started after I broke up with Veronica.”

Both boys turned to stare at the girl in the back seat. Suddenly, Logan remembered why she was there—why they all were there—at all.

“Shit, Duncan, we can’t take her home.”

“What? Why? I mean, I don’t think her dad will be happy to see us, but we can just tell him she had too much to drink at the party and we took her home.”

“She’s not trashed, man. She’s been drugged.”

“WHAT?”

“There was some, ah, Liquid X going around at Shelly’s. She told you at the pool she only had a Coke.”

“So?”

“So I’m pretty sure she got dosed. It wouldn’t have taken much. She’s tiny.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah, pretty much what I thought too.”

“Should we do something? Jesus, they were feeding her shots when I found her. Should we bring her to the hospital or something?”

“Fuck no, man. You wanna bring the cops down on us?” Logan gunned the engine and pulled out onto the street. “My parents are out of town. We can take her to my place, get some water into her.”

“I’ll call CW. He’s got first aid training. He’ll know what we need to do for her.”

“That guy is like the Kane answer to everything, huh?” It was a long-standing joke between them. Logan never failed to mention the way the Kane Software head of security seemed to include nannying the Kane kids as part of his job description.

“You don’t know the half of it. But he’s good in a crisis and he’ll keep his mouth shut, even to my dad, if I ask him to.”

“Fine. We deal with this now. But you and I are going to have to talk about the rest of the things you’ve told me tonight. Soon.”

Duncan sighed. “I know. And Veronica should know too.”

“No, man, she’ll probably blab to her dad.”

“I’ve already decided to do that myself.” Logan glanced at his friend to see the other boy had crossed his arms over his chest and was wearing a resolute expression on his face. “He’s a private investigator now, did you hear?”

“Yeah, man, everyone heard. I mean, after he got fired and all.”

“You mean after my dad got him thrown out of office and replaced by a prize idiot,” Duncan corrected him bitterly. “Sheriff Mars is worth ten of Lamb.”

“Um. Hmm.” Logan didn’t know what to say, seeing as he’d led the crusade against the man, at least among the teenaged 09ers. “What are you planning, man?”

“I’m going to hire him to find Lilly’s killer. Her _real_ killer.”

Say what now?

**Author's Note:**

> A thunderous heaping of thanks to the goddess worshipped as Irma66 for her amazing beta reading, as always.
> 
> Title is misquoted from a 1971 song by Carole King. Pretty sure you know the one.


End file.
